


Musical

by Vera_lemur



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Crossdressing, Humor, Lapdancing, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Minor Violence, Musicals, References to Drugs, Singing, right in the feels, spontaneous musical numbers, warnings and tags will change as the story goes on.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-02-12 23:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2128458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vera_lemur/pseuds/Vera_lemur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a nutty sorceress calling herself 'Musical' stops by Gotham and lives up to her name, people start singing their hearts out all over the place. Secrets are blown, confusion abounds, is no one safe from suddenly, LITERALLY, singing in the rain? Love lost and love found, chaos and laughter all rolled into one. The big question is, what will be the effects of the song inside Tim? And how will they find and defeat the sorceress if you 'Can't Stop The Music'?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: She's bringing Mayhem with a Melody

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BestRobinEvr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BestRobinEvr/gifts).



> Please take note, This story will eventually end in Bruce/Tim. Heads up. Just saying.
> 
> For the moment that is TOTALLY not even a thing, and this story is just funny and cute as I (and the sorceress Musical) take characters and throw them into that one episode of Buffy. This is not meant to be taken too seriously, though any critique given will be treasured like life giving water in the desert.
> 
> Written for my beloved, BestRobinEvr, because she loves all things Tim-Tim, and I love writing.

~Prologue~ 

“I want you, to want ME!”

And in six words Tim Drake knew his life was over.

~Two weeks earlier~ 

 

She didn’t remember her real name, it was fixed, and therefore boring. She’d taken to calling herself Musical because that was what she liked right now, musicals. Preferably the ones that were spontaneous like in the Disney movies she loved so much. Characters have something they want to express and suddenly burst into song and the whole street joins in and it’s just so lovely and fun and it just DOESN’T HAPPEN in the real world. The real world, just being another way of saying the COMPLETELY BORING Plane. Well, that was what she was helping them with. It had been that one episode where everyone had started singing on that show she’d liked… who could remember names… or faces really? It would illude her the more she thought about it so she just let herself forget about it. She was getting good at that.

She was in another city now. This one being dark and dreary and _OH_ so in need of some livening up and the kind of joy that came with living a musical. Why, there was even a dilapidated old theater that had been neglected, no musicals there that was for sure. Oh, she’d fix that. She floated herself to the roof of that old theater and cast the spell her favorite way, completely randomly. The ball of light she manifested exuded fading wisps that took on the form of musical notes, her chanting in a language not native to this realm took on the resonating tone she liked because she felt like she too was going to burst out into song and she slammed her hands together, causing the spell to scatter around the city… Which city was this again? Emo-me? No, no. Gotham. Gotham. Goth, am. I am Goth. She giggled, that was so cute, she wondered if that was on purpose, considering the completely drab and gloomy nature of the city. She altered her outfit to make her look like a mix between Morticia Addams and a Katy Perry, thinking she might as well fit the City. She wondered what kind of musical Gotham would show her as she waited for the show to start. She really hated waiting.

 

~End Prologue~


	2. Chapter 1: If the Joke isn't on me, is it on you?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first "Victims" of the musical curse that has been cast over Gotham are found, Their reactions? You will soon see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you that wish to follow along at home, we have for our first song, I can't Decide by Scissor Sisters, then we have I gotta Feelin' by Black Eyed Peas. youtube and endlessvideo (dot) com if you don't have the songs on hand my friends. Both are beautiful websites.

~Chapter 1~ 

Harley was practicing her acrobatics and fighting skills while Joker tinkered with a mini gas dispersal system and a teddy bear. putting the mechanism in the head was just good sense, it was figuring out a good container material that would hide the fact that the bear was filled with Joker gas that was harder. It needed to be completely inconspicuous or people would get to the punchline before the joke was finished and that would ruin the whole comedic timing. It needed to be airtight and malleable, with enough give that people wouldn’t suspect the gas sack in the plush toy. It needed to resist puncture (again, that would ruin the comedic timing) and corrosion. (Same problem.)

“Come on Mista Jay! Lets Dance!” Harley said, offering her hand.

Joker looked up from the decapitated bear he was working with (the headless bear being a joke in and of itself) he was going to yell at her, tell her to leave him alone or he’d sew her mouth shut and she’d have to change her name to Mimely Quinn when his mouth did something he hadn’t planned on, “Iiiiiiiit’s noooot,” What the heck? Joker had time to think before the sensation took over again. “Easy having myself a good time!” Joker was singing, there was music coming from somewhere and he had a hangman’s noose in his hands. On the whole, Joker was confused, but really, he’d had stranger delusions, and the hangman’s noose gave him hope for this one.

Harley was just as confused, there was a jaunty piano coming from somewhere, Joker was coming towards her with a hangman’s noose, and what was actually WEIRD was that he was singing, in tune. Of course her puddin’ could sing like a nightingale, but singing off key was his shtick because it was funnier. And was he singing Scissor Sisters? She hadn’t even known he KNEW them!

She got caught up in the moment, or rather, she must have done, because she and Joker were actually dancing, mostly with the hangman’s noose around her neck and him occasionally dragging her around by it, occasionally striking a pose or two before she realized her harlequin bodysuit had been changed into a fifties style sweetheart neckline dress, high heeled maryjanes and all. When had that happened? He had a knife to her throat for most of the refrains, and she thought she might be in heaven when they reached the song’s crescendo, “Oh I could throw you in the lake, or feed you poison birthday cake!” because suddenly they were at a lake and he had her over his head, then she was at a table and he’d just revealed a birthday cake with a skull and crossbones. Whatever she was tripping on was excellent stuff and even when he buried her alive she was up and out of the ground almost immediately with Mista Jay’s favorite knife in her hand only for him to take it back and they started what she thought might have been a polka around their hideout.

The song drew to it’s eventual close, Harley had no noose around her neck, her usual clothes were back, and she and Joker were looking at one another slightly out of breath. “Uh, Mista Jay? Did… that actually happen?”

“If you’re the only one who knows what ‘that’ is, then sure.” Joker said, breaking out into laughter and moving back to his bear and workbench.  
  


* * *

Musical laughed at the antics of the two clown people and conjured herself up some popcorn and settled into the top box seats of the theater and let her magical windows show her the fruits of her magic.

* * *

  
Commissioner Gordon had a headache. The start of another night, day six of Joker’s achingly quiet escape from Arkham. Gordon was on edge, waiting for the boom to be lowered, and saw Detective Montoya humming to herself. “What’s gotten into you Detective?”

“Oh? Sorry commissioner, I know you have a headache, I just… I dunno. I feel good about tonight somehow.” Renee said, a sheepish little smile on her face. “You ever just wake up and know it’s going to be a good day?”

“Not since I made Captain.” Jim said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into me really it’s just…” There was an electric guitar coming from somewhere, Jim could hear it. He’d yell at whatever rookie was playing music this loud in the offices, a good lecture about professionalism, try and kill time while he waited for the aspirin to kick in. “I gotta feelin’… That tonight’s gonna be a good night.”

Gordon couldn’t believe it. he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, Renee Montoya was SINGING. He hadn’t even known she could sing! Where was that music coming from? Was this some kind of candid camera? No, Bullock just started to join in, this was officially too weird for this to just be a prank. Joker? Was this some kind of joke? Hadn’t Jim heard this song from somewhere?

Jim was just about scream out what the heck did they think they were doing when he found himself joining in. “Here we come here we go, we gotta Rock! Easy come! Easy go! Now we on top!” Jim didn’t even know what he was even SAYING. And what the heck had happened to Montoya’s clothes?!

Johnson was dancing on someone’s desk, looking like she was wearing a costume version of her usual cop’s uniform. Richards was on the drums. Jim was dancing like he was ten years younger than he had any right to pretend to be. Jim Gordon hoped to GOD the security cameras were getting this because he wasn’t sure he was going to believe this was happening otherwise. By the time the music faded and Johnson had stepped off the desk red as a tomato, the only thing that Jim could think of was, he didn’t have a headache anymore.

~End Chapter 1~


	3. Chapter 2: Secrets of Disgruntled Teenagers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little more drama than comedy, but with lighter moments in the beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ........ I forgot I'd posted this fic. Chapter 2 waaaaay late but here we go. Sorry to like the ten of you who actually read this fic.

~Chapter 2~

“And in a more upbeat story for the day, it seems as though Gotham City is the next site of the bizarre rash of singing that has been traveling the country from coast to coast like a haze of music. While the source of this phenomenon has yet to be confirmed, theories abound, from government testing to aliens to magic, each more far fetched than the last. As is usual for these strange occurrences, no one seems to be hurt, no property damaged and though things seem to manifest out of thin air, they disappear as soon as the… performance ends, leaving everyone involved a little confused, and amused. We go out to Rhonda Summers, who is on the streets with some Gothamites who have experienced a song in their day.”

“Thanks Vicki, I am on Main St. with young George Hammond who says that the sing-along syndrome, as some are calling it, had a rather significant effect on his life. George?”

“It was crazy.” said George, whose arm was around a blushing auburn haired girl about his age, “I’d been trying to ask April here to prom for like, a month but I kept getting all tongue tied and I’d keep chickening out.”

“I had no idea what he was trying to say, I feel awful,” April said with a nod, “But it turned out awesome anyways.”

“I don’t really remember what I started singing.” George admitted, flushing just as red as April.

“I do!” April cut in, “My friend Christie got most of it on her phone!”

“Well, either way, I just sorta spilled my heart out right then and there in the courtyard. All of a sudden there was a spotlight on me and she was suddenly up on a balcony in a princess dress and I was in these really weird digs--”

“He looked HANDSOME!” April said, hugging George to her side.

“And then she was coming down these stairs and we were dancing and I asked her to be my prom queen and she belted out this really sweet yes, everybody in the courtyard started singing and dancing and I think like six people got asked to prom and I was just so happy and then the song was done and she was in my arms and we kissed and it was amazing. I think we even have a shot at prom king and queen because of whatever this sing-along stuff is.”

“We’re trying to find clothes like the ones from our song, for the prom!” April said excitedly.

“Thank you.” Rhonda said, turning back to the camera, “Well there you have it folks, a song of young love that ended in a happy ending, but is all this song and dance harmless? This young woman declined to have her identity revealed on camera.”

“I… I was just snuggling with my babe … and all of a sudden this woman comes in and starts singing all opera and loud as heck about how she’s tired of not being his number one girl and she wanted him for herself and he just started singing about how he just didn’t love her like he loved me and then I started singing that we were THROUGH and suddenly she and I did this crazy encore of Beautiful Liar by Beyonce and Shakira. I was COMPLETELY heartbroken, but she and I have been sorta, weird friends since the song. I just don’t know if I ever wanted to know about it. It’s sort of really horrible either way, you know?”

“And on that slightly cautionary note, I’ve run out of time, and will turn it over to you in the studio. Vicki?”

“Thanks Rhonda. And We’ll be right back after these messages.”

Tim turned off the TV. “My bet’s magic.” he said over his shoulder.

“...” Bruce didn’t answer. 

“I mean, it’s the most logical option of them. Aliens with that much knowledge of pop songs? HIGHLY unlikely. Government experimentation? Could be, I guess, but if that were the case they wouldn’t be letting get this much publicity. A spell is the least absurd option. We could ask Zatana if-?”

“I already have.” Bruce said, pulling his cowl over his face, “She says it’s a type of magic, different from her own. She offered to come to Gotham.”

“And you told her no metas or magics in Gotham.” Tim finished, picking up an extra bo staff and sliding it into new holster on his back. He’d see how comfortable the placement was in the field. Bruce had let him babble again, was it to let him draw his own conclusions, or did he just not care if Tim talked or not? Tim hoped it was the first one, that Bruce was letting him think logically and make deductions, training him to be a better Robin.

  


* * *

  


Jason Todd had been furiously cleaning his guns when he’d heard the furious guitar intro, suddenly he was on his feet and he was in uniform with no domino and he was singing “Well if you wanted honesty, that’s all you had to say. I never want let you down or have you go, it’s BETTER OFF this way!” He had no idea what he was doing but he seemed to be singing to his window, the one where if he dained to look outside it he could see the Bat signal in the sky. What the HELL was pouring out of his mouth? Why couldn’t he stop singing? Where was this god damn spotlight on him coming from?

“I’m NOT oh-kay! I’m not oh-Kaaaaay!  
I’m not Okaaaaay, you wear me out!”

Jason was on the roof of his hideout, now in a domino somehow? The spotlight now shining down on him was not a helicopter, that was for sure, but where was it coming from? Where did the dudes in Red bandanas serving as his BAND come from? Jason could hear himself screaming and singing his lungs out to the fucking sky just in time to see two caped figures zip line across the horizon.

“But you really need to listen to me! Because I’m telling you the truth!” It didn’t feel like it, but Jason couldn’t help the lyrics and so just rolled with it as best as he could, praying that when the song ended the whole experience would, “I MEAN IT, I’M OKAY! Trust me.” Oh, it was sarcasm. Now Jason was tracking. They’d stopped on a rooftop just as the song drew to its end. Bruce would see him, Jason was in his civvies on the roof now. His hideout was blown if it had ever been a secret from Bruce in the first place. Jason was breathing hard, he’d been screaming, and as much as he hadn’t liked the out of body experience, as much as it made his cheeks burn, he supposed he couldn’t argue with the set list. Jason flipped the bird in Bruce’s general direction, and walked to the fire escape. Fuck this sing song stupidity, Jason was going to go bug Roy for a bit until this bullshit blew over.

“Was that song aimed at you, or more of a general statement?” Tim asked.

“I think everyone involved would be better off if no one found out.” Bruce said, and Tim thought he was a little sad. Tim left it alone, and prayed he wasn’t next.

  


* * *

  


“And onto our newest segment, Musical Mayhem! We’ve been asking our viewers to call, submit, and come in with their wacky stories of songs they’ve witnessed and even better, been a part of, winner for most voted for song experience of the night gets a 500 dollar Gotham Heights Mall Gift card for a shopping spree! If you can get a song right here on the show you get the gift card as a matter of course!”

Tim turned off the TV again. It had barely been more than a week, the local TV stations sure adapted fast. Tim mussed his hair and rolled his shoulders, moving to the dining room for another dinner alone.

  
Only, it didn’t qualify, because he wasn’t alone. 

“You’re late for dinner, Timothy. We started without you.” Janet Drake said over a glass of red wine.

“M-Mother.” Tim blinked, “Father.” He said, acknowledging the man. “I didn’t know we were having… a family meal.”

“I didn’t realize we had to call ahead to have a meal with our SON.” Jack said, raising an eyebrow. “Your food’s getting cold, sit down.”

Tim didn’t immediately recognize the gentle guitar strumming for what it really was at first. It wasn’t until the Bass and the drums came in with a vengeance that he realized not only the song that was going to happen, but who was going to be performing.

“Mom, Dad, Look at me, think back and talk to me. Did I grow up according to plan?” He hadn’t. He knew he hadn’t. but those were the lyrics. But did it matter? the lyrics had already changed. The song never mentioned a mother, it was a letter from a son to his father. “And do you think I’m wasting my time, doing things I wanna do, but it hurts when you disapprove all along.” The truth of that lyric hurt enough to give Tim literal pains in his stomach. “And now I try hard to make it, I just wanna make you PROUD.” Would Tim actually survive a song this close to all the old wounds in his soul? He’d thought he had gotten used to the fact that his parents weren’t satisfied with him. “I’m NEVER gonna be good enough for you, Can’t pretend that I’m alright! And you can’t CHANGE me!”

Tim had been pretending he was alright. He was actually really GOOD at pretending that he was okay with his family’s relationship. He’d been okay with it for years before he realized how cold his family was, but by then he just kept acting like he hadn’t. Why this song?? Too close, FAR too close to home. 

“Because we lost it all, nothing lasts forever, I’m sorry, I can’t be, perfect.” Tim realized that he hadn’t changed clothes, nor had his mother or father, that was strange, because costumes seemed to be a standard happening of these sudden song attacks. The dining room stretched and grew, stage lights manifested, Tim climbed on the table as his parents sat in what formed into movie theater seats, then thrones.

“Nothing’s gonna change the things that you said, and nothing’s gonna make this right again! Please don’t turn your back I, can’t believe it’s hard just to talk to you, but you don’t understand!”

Jack had the decency to look sheepish, Janet just looked very uncomfortable. Tim thought he felt just a smidge more uncomfortable than she did. If a smidge meant ‘a hell of a whole lot.’ He didn’t want to be up here, didn’t want to be holding this microphone that seemed to come out of nowhere, singing the pain in his heart fresh and laying it bare at the feet of his parents. He couldn’t not look at them, and he just wanted his song to end. He heard the music repeat, then slow, and fade, and before the dining room reverted to it’s original shape, dishes and dinner laid out, Tim got off the table. Oddly enough, the white tablecloth didn’t even have shoe marks on it. Tim thought that was a little impressive and tried to focus on that as silence stretched.

“I.” Tim couldn’t take this, didn’t want to be here. “I want to sleep over a friends house.” Too late, Tim realized he hadn’t even given them the name of a friend whose house he would stay at, he looked up from the tablecloth to correct his mistake, add details to his lie, when his mother cut him off.

“Go.”

Tim hardly needed telling twice, he literally ran for where he’d stashed his motorcycle and rode home on autopilot, too worried about the tears in his eyes to trust that he could drive safe. Tim knew that by the time he decided he could face coming home again, his parents would be halfway across the world, avoiding him and his confession, he almost welcomed it.

“Fuck.” Tim grit out.

~End Chapter 2~


	4. Chapter 3: Montages and Monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An Interlude chapter, but fear not, a double update WILL happen!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> someone left a review and all of a sudden you guys get updates! it's almost like reviews inspire me to start writing this stuff again or something. (BTW, i'm a feedback junkie. you should totally leave me feedback.)

~Chapter 3~

“Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we have a WINNER for tonights hit performance of the night,” the grinning talk show host told the cameras, “And I’m not just saying that because it features Gotham’s finest! Let’s take a look.”

The video feed switched to what was obviously a cameraphone video, poor camera angle and grainy image and sound quality kept in tact and obviously catching an instructor addressing the assembled masses that the video taker was obviously a part of. The beat was low and not immediately noticeable at first, but suddenly the instructor broke out into an amplified “LETS Get down to business!” and while some of the lyric was lost by the video taker’s snickering, you could catch the tail end of “The HUNS!”

“Dude he’s getting INTO it, Think we’re gonna get roped in too?” overpowered the next line of the song, and another voice said, “Crap!” That’s a good point!” And the camera took a dizzying movement before it was rather obviously wedged just so that it could still capture the whole scene as the assembled Police Academy Cadets fell in, to montage their way to excellence.

“I’m never gonna catch my breath!”

“Say Goodbye to those who knew me!”

“Why was I a fool in school for cutting Gyyyyyyyyyym?”

“These Guys got ‘em scared to death!”

“Hope he doesn’t see right through me!”

“Now I really WISH that I knew how to SWIIIIIIIIM!”

“BE A MAN!”

The video cut out, switching back to the grinning host, “And we have the full video up on our website, just go to the Musical Mayhem link, it’s currently topping the Top Ten links chart and click the video entitled ‘GCPD Academy goes Disney.’ Don’t forget to vote for your favorite performance tonight either by call, text or while you’re watching the full video on our website click the vote link and make your voice known!” The host made a little shift that indicated that instead of the camera, he was addressing the audience itself. “What do you think folks? Am I right? Will this be our winner of the 500 dollar Shopping Spree at Gotham Heights Mall? If you have a better story of video PLEASE, call us up, drop by the studio or submit your video to our website and put it to the people. We’ll be right back.”

Twoface sneered at the TV and barked an order for someone to shut it off. He was too agitated not to just break it and the boob tube kept the boobs in his employ quiet when he didn’t have anything for them to do. An urge to just shoot the incompetent sacks in the back of their heads came over him and he wordlessly took out his coin and gave it a flip. … Good heads. They’d die some other night. Whatever.

He was just irritated tonight, it was a bad night and what was worse was he only had one thing to do tonight, which was to be patient. His buyer would show up and in a two part deal, (which yes Harvey knew was a part of his psychosis, but really, he didn’t care. The whole job had itched at him until the second part of the transaction was set up and when he got agitated like that his men tended to die by his bullets. Which really, made it so you had to go hunting for another two bit crook who was crazy enough to fill the shoes of someone his boss had killed in cold blood. Now that was crazy.) ammo first, paid in cash, then the guns to shoot them with, to be paid in drugs that Twoface could sell for even more of a profit.

The buyer turned up, sweating more than was normal for that time of year, but he had all his goons with their eyes on all the windows. “T-the batman was spotted a few streets from here. Don’t need none of that shit, either of us, yeah?”

Twoface only grunted his agreement, dispatching more of his men to the perimeter. They’d only be downed while the Batman made it in, but maybe one of them wouldn’t be knocked unconscious and alert the rest of them. One of the Buyer’s guards was a woman, that was new but she wasn’t facing him and he dismissed her to get the transaction completed as soon as possible. Someone was already likely packing up the meager things they’d brought to the drop point in the van. The cargo was already unloaded, a few duffles of cash, a few duffles of drugs and hopefully they’d be able to burn rubber while the Bat dealt with the tools with the guns. Yes, Twoface had learned his lessons. The hard way.

The buyer checked the crates the guns were packaged in, “Seems everything’s good here. Pleasure doing business with you Twoface.” at a fingersnap men with the duffles of the drugs, (Coke Harvey remembered, that anonymous powder was supposed to be coke. His labrat had tested a random sample and said it was, so that was good enough for Twoface.) moved to hand them off to two of Twoface’s men.

“And now gentlemen, I think we’re done here.” Twoface gave a flip of his coin, deciding if he shouldn’t just shoot them all and have cash drugs and guns all to himself, but the toss hadn’t been in favor of that. Oh well, that would have been a messy business anyways.

“Actually, Harvey. We’ve just gotten to the main event.” Renee Montoya pulled off the beanie she’d pulled low on her head, which had made her hair partially cover her face. “You’re under arrest for the illegal sale of guns, and possession of drugs with the intent to sell.”

“You little dead shit!” Twoface roared at his buyer, “You PLAYED ME? To the COPS!?”

“Don’t get mad at him Harvey, we had him by the short and curlies nearly the whole time. Few people are suicidal enough to deliberately cross you Harvey.” Twoface, Harvey? No, Twoface heard and knew that she was trying to calm him down, “Your reputation is of course, impressive.” Twoface swallowed, fighting down the weird feeling in his gut that was a foolish and hopeless desire for the detective. Harvey Dent liked Renee, she was a good woman, fair and strong and kind. She had this way about her that cooled Harvey’s temper when he got angry sometimes. “I don’t want this to turn ugly Harvey. I don’t want there to be blood tonight. I just want everyone to be able to lay down in a bed tonight and wake up the next morning. Can you help me do that? Please? That’s all, just that nobody dies.”

“You want me to come quietly. Get myself arrested, sent back to Arkham. Gordon. He sent you. Knew.” The anger was welling up in him, maybe this was one of those times that Renee wasn’t going to be able to help. Maybe she would get hurt.

“I volunteered for this assignment, and had to give a very impressively worded speech to do it.” Montoya said, as her men were escorting the crooks in the warehouse out at gunpoint. This had been her sting, she’d wanted to close the deal herself. And she knew, even if she didn’t totally understand, that Harvey was sweet on her. She had mixed feelings about that, but if she could help Harvey Dent be a better man, if she could calm the rage of TwoFace… She would help, and she would try. “I uphold the law which you broke Harvey, mostly because I don’t want to see everything crumble into a thousand pieces. We’ve seen that. It gets ugly, and people lose too much. This is my job, but here’s something that isn’t.” Renee put a hand on Harvey’s burned one, deliberately. “If you come quietly tonight, I promise to visit you at least once a week, job permitting. I want to see you get better Harvey, I’ve seen you do it, so I’m going to have faith.”

Twoface was beside himself.

She wants to help us.  
She wants to lock us up.  
She says she’ll visit, once a week.  
You KNOW we don’t even get visitors!  
She’s a cop, she could do it if I were showing good behavior.  
She’s USING our feelings for her!  
She doesn’t have to visit us.  
She’s trying to HURT us like I always said she would!  
All she wants is for everyone to wake up the next morning, that’s what she said.  
And she’s lying!  
NO, no you don’t get to say that about her, you know she’s different, look at her hand!  
Alright, she is different, but that doesn’t mean she’s not playing us for FOOLS.

Renee saw Twoface’s eyes flick back and forth, having what she understood was a mental battle on whether or not to kill her and everyone in sight. She was taking a risk, she knew, but she also knew that she was hearing a bass guitar and drum from somewhere and she knew what that meant. The melody was angry, and she worried what this would mean when suddenly words burst from Twoface’s mouth.

“I can’t escape this hell. So many time’s I’ve tried! But I’m still caged inside.” Renee knew this song, and her heart hurt for the pain Harvey must be feeling because suddenly both cops and crooks were in uniforms of navy blue and orange respectively, playing instruments behind freestanding sections of bars. “Somebody get me through this nightmare! I can’t control myself! So what if you can see, the darkest side of me no one will ever cage this animal I have become!” A crocodile crawled past her, and though Renee had been startled, she’d realized that no matter what happened during these strange songs, no one was ever hurt. Wild animals, mostly dangerous were manifesting in and out from the shadows around everyone, just walking. Harvey’s suit changed, his normally black and white split suit changed so that his burned side was pristine, while his unburnt side was patterned in flames. It explained why Renee was in a light blue dress and gauzy shawl: he was burning and he saw her as the water to put him out.

The song was dying off, and Harvey was already crying in Renee’s arms, the stage, the lights, the bars, the animals, the costumes faded one after the other. The song died away, and Renee gave the thumbs up to the highest window she could see out of at her angle. She wasn’t sure if he was out there, but she wanted to let him know he wasn’t needed tonight.

The next day Renee was telling Harvey in the visitors area how Harleyquinn had called into a late night TV show and told of her deadly sock hop dance with the Joker. Then she told him how she’d accidentally gotten the entire police bullpen to sing Black Eyed Peas and her partner had break-danced like he’d been born to it. She’d laughed and he’d laughed and maybe just maybe Harvey might try to get better. Maybe he’d flip for it.

~End Chapter 3~


	5. Chapter 4: Heroic Desperation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At LAST! We have arrived at the first lines of the story I lured you all in with!
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Because I'm nefarious for making you wait this long. Or something...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS! This takes place while Tim is canonly still Robin. That means that he's pretty significantly young in this fic, and while we do not strain the bounds of good taste: there is mutual attraction between a minor and a full grown man. (which is doubtless what got like, 99.99% of you to click on this story but still. I would much rather warn than not warn and someone get more than they bargained for with my fic.) Tags have been edited appropriately, so please refer to them.

~Chapter 4~

Musical had seen so many kinds of songs! Some were funny, lots of them were even popular songs, some people, like that cute romeo and Juliet prom couple made up their own ones, those were the best in her opinion.

 

The musicals were still happening. Still all over the news, and because of that Tim thought he was going to go crazy. He didn’t want to star in another performance so he kept his mouth shut and his mind clear as much as possible, meditating almost more than he was sleeping. If Bruce was concerned with Tim’s behavior, he didn’t show it and that was and was not the problem.

Tim could admit it, he’d been a batman fanboy before most people had even believed there really was a Batman. He had the thick black rimmed glasses in his disguise repertoire and had even taken a secret selfie of himself in those hipster glasses with a printout of the batman logo on his wall staring off into the distance while he’d held up an index card reading “I was into Batman before it was cool.” He’d laughed himself into a stomach ache when he’d photoshopped some cosmic space background into the picture. The picture was hugely embarrassing but even more hilarious and he kept it in a biometrically locked drawer that would have been called a high security safe deposit box if it had been one of two thousand in a bank. He had it in an unused section of his father’s building along with a few other trinkets to lift his spirits when the drudgery of being used as a status symbol for his father got to him. Now as robin, he could sneak in for his little cache whenever he liked. He prayed Batman never found out about that picture.

It was probably useless to pray that you could keep secrets from the Batman, but hope, unfortunately, wasn’t rational. 

Tim had been fighting for rationality for days. It just wasn’t going to last much longer, and Tim knew it. Bruce was neck deep in trying to pin down about 5 different names out of the Batman’s “Rogues Gallery.” Tim thought that Bruce knew, or at least suspected where the source of the magic causing the songs was, but he couldn’t prove it and barely trusted himself not to start singing if he opened his mouth to ask.

It wasn’t normal for Tim not to fill the silence of the Bat Cave, and they both knew it, but Bruce wasn’t pressing Tim about it, in fact he was barely speaking to Tim either. Tim would have said that Bruce was reluctant to start his own concert if not for the fact that Bruce was also refusing to look at him. Even going so far as to be steadfastly involved in the Bat Computer instead of studying Tim’s form as Tim ran through his demanding training regimen. Bruce nearly always made time to observe at least part of Tim’s fighting forms to give the occasional praise and most often sharp critique. Bruce was always demanding of Tim, and Tim knew that at least part of that harsh standard he was upheld to was in reaction to Jason’s death. So that Bruce was ignoring him as much as his parents ever had stung bitterly.

“Yes Tim?” Bruce said, pushing away from the computer to look at Tim. Tim blinked and stared blankly at Bruce who after a beat continued, “You’ve been standing there for twenty minutes.” Tim blushed. He often watched Bruce, he couldn’t help it, Batman and Robin had been his obsessions since he had been a boy. When his hormones had kicked in of course they’d honed in on what he was already fixated on. Embarrassed at having been caught staring, at having done something as stupid as stand in the middle of the sparring mats (as obvious as the grin on Joker’s face), Tim wished he could fade into the shadows as effectively as Bruce could. “Did you want something?”

Against his better judgement, Tim opened his mouth to answer.

“I want you,” Tim heard the reverb around his voice and already knew it was too late. “To want ME.” And in six words Tim wanted to keel over dead than live through the next few minutes.

The song was different, the accompaniment Tim heard throughout the cave wasn’t quite the upbeat 1970’s pop song as the original song by Cheap Trick had been, this sounded a bit soulful, which made Tim dread it more. Tim felt his body move as the song welled up around him, walking towards Bruce. “I want you to want me.” He repeated, “I need you to need me. I’d love you to love me. I’m BEGGING you to beg me.” On the word begging, which had sounded like it had been wrenched directly from Tim’s heart, he felt his clothes change, the first change of the song. The four lines repeated and Bruce was no longer in his Batman’s garb with his cowl down, but a light gray business suit, complete with tie pin and cufflinks with little Batman emblems on them. Tim felt the draft of the cave around him, and knew by the feel of what he was wearing that he was NOT wearing pants or shorts.

This was not the first time Tim had worn a dress, it wasn’t his fifth, young Robins often crossdressed undercover doing Bat work and Tim could feel only mild annoyance that whatever force that had chosen for him to sing THIS particular song had also chosen for him to be in what felt like an abysmally short and tight skirt. By the weight on his head and the feel around his neck and chin, he guessed he was also wearing a wig, blonde if the little flickers and flashes in his peripheral vision were to be trusted. Tim didn’t want to know what he was wearing while he sang, but he couldn’t make his own brain shut up long enough not to try and figure it out. Besides which, thinking about what he was wearing was only slightly not as bad as thinking about what he was singing.

“I’d get home early from work, if you’d say that you loved me.” Tim crooned, and could hardly believe himself as he straddled Bruce’s lap, curling his fingers into Bruce’s hair. “Didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I see you cryin’?” Tim let himself give a quick kiss to Bruce’s temple, an action not part of what his body was doing against his will, but something he had wanted to do that the song didn’t disallow, and gave him the perfect excuse to do. “Oh, didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I see you cryin’? Feelin’ all alone, without a friend, I know you feel like dyin’. Oooh, didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I see you cryin’?”

There was no other way to describe how Tim was moving in Bruce’s lap other than to call it a lapdance, and not just because Tim was moving to the song he was singing while sitting on Bruce. Despite having never received nor given one, Tim knew that he was in fact lapdancing Bruce. The screen of the Bat Computer went Idle, and Tim finally saw that he was dressed the streetwalker’s garb of Julia Robert’s Pretty Woman. Oh god, he just couldn’t do anything halfway could he? Especially not sing his heart out it seemed.

With one last round of wanting needing loving and begging, Tim sat in Bruce’s lap, his erection that had been straining the cheap fabric of his skirt/dress was now tucked somewhat uncomfortably behind his uniform’s jock. Tim was crying, he’d started somewhere in the middle of the song because as true as the song had been, this was telling a secret he wasn’t ready to tell against his wishes and he hated it, just as he’d hated the song he’d sung to his parents.

Bruce held Tim as he cried, letting Tim bury his face in the loose material of the lowered cowl, so he wouldn’t have to look at Bruce. They sat like that in front of the powered down computer screen for several minutes until Tim felt like he could calm down. He would after all, have to face the reality that he’d just confessed deep sexual desires for his mentor who was over twice his age. Tim never did choose easy paths. But when Tim pulled up to speak Bruce cut him off.

“I’m not a perfect person.” And Tim thought the words were more sing songed then spoken, and wondered if Bruce was going to get his own musical number. “There’s many things I wish I didn’t do.” It was kind of a spoken singing, Tim thought, and Tim had never known of any song that hadn’t had musical accompaniment, “But I continue learning, I never meant to do those things to you.” Tim started to realize that this wasn’t part of the magic that forced people to sing their hearts out, just Bruce. “And so I have to say before I go, that I just want you to know: I found a reason for me, to change who I used to be, a reason to start over new, and the reason is you.”

Tim’s throat constricted again when the gravity of Bruce willingly putting himself on even ground with Tim hit him. Going song for song with Tim of his own free will, and the message this song was meant to convey made Tim start crying again, but Bruce wouldn’t let him bury his face away. Bruce caught Tim’s hands, cupped Tim’s face to force him to look at Bruce, and used his thumbs and knuckles to gently wipe away Tim’s fresh tears.

Only Bruce could overcome a spell that forced people to sing their emotions by choosing to do it first. Music never bloomed in the background for the entire song, and Tim found he liked that, Bruce’s deep baritone was perfect and enthralling, and made him blush all over again.

Bruce held Tim after his song came to a close, and Tim let out a sigh of contentment just as a bright flash of light and a chime went off over near the sparring mats where Tim had just been about fifteen minutes ago.

A young woman with the dreamy mad look of one best confined in Arkham stood when the light dimmed. “Why that was JUST PERFECT! Encore! Oh, No one’s ever sung WITHOUT my magic before!” The woman gushed, “It was simply divine. Encore! Encore!”

~End Chapter 4~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, my readership: If ever there were a time to feed this feedback junkie it is now! I have one more chapter to go, and if you want me to bring the sexy goodness that will bump this rating right up into that Big Red Explicit I need you to TELL me so!
> 
> At this point, the next and final chapter (the epilogue if i'm being quite literal) is short, sweet, and fluffy. Is this sufficient for you?

**Author's Note:**

> As always all comments will be treasured, though all Critiques will cause endless joy and inspiration for writing more! Please **DO** feed the Feedback Junkie!


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